Friday, March 25

HAPPY FRIDAY! You have reached the end of Week 9! The blog commenting assignment for this week is available in both classes now, and Friday morning, until noon, is the grace period for the Storytelling post that was due on Thursday. Here is a link to this week's assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. If you turned something in before noon on Thursday, I will do my best to get that back to you with comments today! You can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment.

Blog Responding. The blog responding groups are ready to go! I hope you will enjoy reading the stories this week. Even if you did not do a storytelling post yourself, you are still in a blog group, and I hope you will want to read and comment.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

The Shapes of Stories. Find out more at Kurt Vonnegut's ideas at Maya Eilam's website.

Mythology Words in English: Today's mythology word in English is SATURNINE, from the name of the Roman god Saturn. For details, see this blog post.

Featured Storybook: Hotel California. In this eerie Storybook, Daphne and Felix Cross check into the Hotel California and — just as you would expect — they can check out any time they like, but they can never leave...

Free Book Online: The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This blog post provides additional information about this famous American poem, which is one of the reading options for the Myth-Folklore class.

India Featured Book: The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Dutton. This blog post provides additional information about this reading option for Indian Epics; Bidpai is a legendary storyteller something like Aesop in ancient Greece.

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is Better bend than break (a French proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. In other words: be flexible!

Today's Video: Native American Ledger Art. This is a video from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is ready to take a chance: Stay creative: take risks. Details at the blog.

Event on Campus: There will be a Nowruz Persian Music Workshop at 3:30PM in Catlett Music Hall — come learn about the sitar, tombak, and other traditional instruments (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

March 25: Good Friday. The Easter calendar varies from year to year. This year, Easter Sunday will be celebrated on Sunday, March 27, and Friday, March 25, is known as Good Friday. In many countries, there are "Hot Cross Buns" which are eaten on Good Friday, decorated with the sign of the cross. Not surprisingly, there are various superstitious about this special holiday bread, and you can read more about that at Wikipedia. One of the beliefs about Hot Cross Buns is that if you share a Hot Cross Bun with someone on Good Friday, you will enjoy friendship with them all year long, provided that you say this charm: "Half for you and half for me / Between us two shall goodwill be."



Note: You can page back through the older blog posts to see any announcements you might have missed, and you can check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day.